Willa Cather
In 1896, Cather moved to Pittsburgh after being hired to write for the Home Monthly,[8] a women's magazine patterned after the successful Ladies Home Journal.[9] A year later, she became a telegraph editor and drama critic for the Pittsburgh Leader and frequently contributed poetry and short fiction to The Library, another local publication. In Pittsburgh, she taught Latin, algebra, and English composition[10] at Central High School for one year. She next taught English and Latin at Allegheny High School, where she became the head of the English department.
"The earth was warm under me, and warm as I crumbled it through my fingers...I kept as still as I could. Nothing happened. I did not expect anything to happen. I was something that lay under the sun and felt it, like the pumpkins, and I did not want to be anything more. I was entirely happy. Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become a part of something entire, whether it is sun and air, or goodness and knowledge. At any rate, that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great. When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep."
— Willa Cather, My Antonia[11]
Cather's first collection of short stories, The Troll Garden was published in 1905 by McClure, Phillips, and Company. It contains several of Cather's best-known stories—"A Wagner Matinee", "The Sculptor's Funeral", and "Paul's Case."
In 1906 Cather moved to New York City upon receiving a job offer on the editorial staff from McClure's Magazine. During her first year at McClure's, she wrote a critical biography of Christian Science founder, Mary Baker Eddy. While Georgina Milmine's name appears as co-author both in serial and book form – she provided copious amounts of research but did not have the resources to produce a publishable manuscript on her own[12] – Cather was the principal writer of the biography. Mary Baker G. Eddy: The Story of Her Life and the History of Christian Science was published in McClure's in fourteen
"The earth was warm under me, and warm as I crumbled it through my fingers...I kept as still as I could. Nothing happened. I did not expect anything to happen. I was something that lay under the sun and felt it, like the pumpkins, and I did not want to be anything more. I was entirely happy. Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become a part of something entire, whether it is sun and air, or goodness and knowledge. At any rate, that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great. When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep."
— Willa Cather, My Antonia[11]
Cather's first collection of short stories, The Troll Garden was published in 1905 by McClure, Phillips, and Company. It contains several of Cather's best-known stories—"A Wagner Matinee", "The Sculptor's Funeral", and "Paul's Case."
In 1906 Cather moved to New York City upon receiving a job offer on the editorial staff from McClure's Magazine. During her first year at McClure's, she wrote a critical biography of Christian Science founder, Mary Baker Eddy. While Georgina Milmine's name appears as co-author both in serial and book form – she provided copious amounts of research but did not have the resources to produce a publishable manuscript on her own[12] – Cather was the principal writer of the biography. Mary Baker G. Eddy: The Story of Her Life and the History of Christian Science was published in McClure's in fourteen